India's Airbound Raises $37M to Develop Drones for Cost-Efficient Goods Delivery
Airbound, an Indian startup specializing in autonomous drones, has secured a $37 million Series A funding round led by Greenoaks and supported by DoorDash, Lightspeed, Humba Ventures, and others. This brings the company's total raised capital to nearly $50 million within three years. The funds will be used to advance its mission of making drone-based delivery as cost-effective as traditional trucking. Airbound is developing lightweight drones designed to carry more payload relative to their own weight using a rocket-like tail-sitter design that allows vertical takeoff and landing without runways. Its current model, the TRT, weighs 3.3 pounds and can carry up to 2.2 pounds of cargo. The next version aims for double the carrying capacity while maintaining efficiency. The startup has already completed over 13,000 autonomous flights in southern India, including partnerships with Narayana Health for transporting medical samples. Airbound is also working on a larger vision: establishing a drone delivery network across three cities in Andhra Pradesh that could eventually handle up to 10,000 daily deliveries.
